Chapter Text
“Just a little further,” Bucky said, his voice soft, and everything about that was wrong. Bucky wasn’t quiet, his face didn’t wear this solemnness comfortably. Not when he was always so quick to smile, to throw his head back and laugh with that particular laugh that made everyone listening smile along with him. He was always the first to tease Steve out of one of his brooding moods, to tell horrible jokes until the younger male had to give in, and grin with him.
Bucky didn’t smile now. Instead, he turned to stare at Steve for a moment, his eyes dark, unreadable, and Steve wished in that moment he was everything Bucky had always been – so he could make things better like Bucky always had. But this, this moment the future was inexorably pulling them towards, he was helpless to stop it. So instead he bit back his questions about where they were going, and simply did his best to memorize every single line of that face that he could already draw blind-folded. Just in case... He hated to think it, hated to acknowledge the fear that left him gasping awake at night, panicked and certain the worse had already come to pass. Just in case.
Where they were headed didn’t matter anyway. Steve had always followed Bucky anywhere. He was trying his best to follow him still. Yet just like when they were kids, his shorter legs, weaker frame could not keep up. This weak body he’d been given was now stealing his chance to follow Bucky, across the ocean and into the embrace of likely death, and he’d never hated it more. His fragile heart, his lungs that even now wanted to gasp for breath, they held him back. His small arms couldn’t hold Bucky here, safe. And for the first time, Bucky couldn’t do as he’d always done - slow down, wait for Steve to catch up. Bucky was leaving tomorrow, for England. For war. And Steve was staying behind.
Steve had tried again this morning, one more recruitment office. One more application full of lies. One more useless hope that he could follow Bucky. Oh God, he’d pleaded, please let me follow. And one more time, he’d been denied. “Saving you from dying,” the harried doctor had said, as he stamped the denial on the application full of lies. But that doctor didn’t understand. Bucky was the one who Steve lived for. The one who made him feel alive when he’d spent his life trapped in a body that hovered one short step from death. All Steve was being saved for was dying a slower demise, if the worst should come to pass. That’s why he was so desperate to follow Bucky. Just in case...
He hadn’t told Bucky about his attempt. Knew Bucky would only be upset over it. Knew Bucky wanted nothing more than for Steve to stay here, safe and sound. Knew Bucky didn’t understand Steve’s feeble heartbeat threatened to stop altogether in his absence.
Holding aside a branch until Steve walked past it, Bucky fell still in the small clearing. Steve, who thought he’d known every corner of Brooklyn, had somehow never noticed this place. Not truly a park, it was simply a small wedge of wilderness tucked between two buildings, not even a block long. A small spot of nature that had miraculously missed the inevitable destruction of man. Standing in the middle of it, Steve stopped, and stared at Bucky who stood, hands in his pockets, studying a tree stump amidst the trees reaching far overhead. From here, the sounds of the city were filtered, far away, giving Steve the feeling they were the only two people for miles around. But then, hadn’t he lived his life feeling this way?
“It was struck by lightning,” Bucky said, and his voice, it still held that soft tone. A trace of melancholy. His eyes were far away as he studied the tree trunk, cut off abruptly a few feet above the ground. “This place, it was my favorite place to come when I was little. Before I met you.” At that, his gaze lifted, met Steve’s, who knew this was important, even if he didn’t understand how.
“I used to pretend I was Peter Pan in Neverland, or an explorer, a pirate. Sometimes I just used to come here and think. It was mine, and even though people passed by it every day, I never saw another person here. This tree, it was my favorite. And then, one night there was a storm, and it was struck by lightning. Split it right in two. I guess other people must have come here, because a few days later when I visited it, it had been cut down.”
Pausing, Bucky trailed his fingers over the rings, the age and the history which had once been hidden inside a tree that would have towered over their heads. And now the tree was gone, leaving behind its story for the rest of time. “People might say that’s bad luck I guess. But I thought that was incredible, Steve. Everyone says your chances of doing something big, or having something incredible happen, are the same as getting struck by lightning. And this tree did. Even though I didn’t know what, I knew it meant something. Something that I thought was mine, and it was struck by lightning.”
Moving forward until he and Bucky were close enough to touch, Steve reached out, and delicately traced in circles along its history, along the lines ingrained in the wood, each one a year of life immortalized eternally in death. Brushing his hand right back in time through centuries, he read the story of a giant that had lived long before he was born. Until heaven had struck it down.
“Steve.” Lifting his eyes, blue meeting gray, Steve thought he heard more in that one word than he could let himself hope for or believe. He thought he heard all the things that in his own heart he’d never dared voice. The love for a friend, then love for a brother, then love that had expanded beyond anything he’d ever known. A love that threatened his laboring heart with the sheer immensity of its weight, yet one he’d kept locked inside, never daring to let it out. Not when letting the most beautiful feeling he’d ever experienced finally gleam in the light of day might make the only person he’d ever felt it for turn away. In disgust perhaps, or shock. In disbelief that someone so small, so imperfect, might believe he’d have a chance with someone larger than life, like Bucky had always been. And so even now, when he thought he heard a love that matched his own, he couldn’t chance believing it. Not when he might be wrong.
“When I’m gone-” Bucky paused, his throat working nearly painfully before he drew a breath, forged on. “When I’m gone, you need to promise me something.”
Steve could only stare at him, trying not to let the dangerous pain in his heart show. This wasn’t a condition, wasn’t his health fraying further. It was the fact that the unreliable, stuttering organ in his chest, it belonged to Bucky. It always had. And now Bucky was leaving. Steve wanted to reply, viscerally felt the soul-deep need to tell Bucky he’d do anything he asked. But Steve couldn’t say a word.
Biting his lip, Bucky took a breath that nearly trembled. Visibly steeling himself, the line of his jaw clenching painfully, he reached out, and took Steve’s hand in his own. Steve looked down, saw the way their fingers tangled together, and the fit was so perfect he wanted to cry. Wished hopelessly he’d known this before. Wished he could feel that perfect fit every day the rest of his life. Blinking rapidly, a soft gasp was jerked from his lungs when Bucky stepped closer, wrapping a hand around the nape of Steve’s neck, a thumb at his jaw tilting Steve’s face up until their eyes met once more. And Steve saw the melancholy that had evolved to outright grief, saw the gleam of tears in those gray eyes, wondered at the vicious strength it must be taking to keep them from spilling over.
“Promise me that you’ll stay safe. Stay alive. Stop trying to follow me, Steve. Just... just stay here,” Bucky spoke, his tone somewhere in between a command and a plea, and Steve actively felt his whole being yearning to give in, to promise Bucky. But he couldn’t, not when the very love that made him want to give in was the very love that would never let him.
“You know I can’t do that,” Steve managed, watched as that strength broke, a tear rolling from each eye, and knew he’d never seen anything more heartbreaking in his life.
“Steve, for me-” Bucky bit out raggedly, and Steve shook his head even as he gathered a bravery he’d never had before, and placed a hand on Bucky’s neck, fingers weaving into the soft, waving strands of hairs. Just in case, he never got the chance again. Just in case...
“I can’t stop, Bucky. Not knowing you’ll be there. I will do everything I can to follow you,” Steve vowed, determination vibrating in every word. Steve didn’t dare voice that incredible, consuming, shattering emotion in his heart that was all for Bucky, but this, this he could say. Bucky closed his eyes, hearing the finality in Steve’s tone. Knowing it was true. And mourned the fact, if Steve somehow managed it, and God knew if anyone could, Steve would, that following Bucky would surely be the death of him. Unable to hold back the ragged sobs that jerked in his chest, Bucky pulled Steve tight against him, damning every reason that had kept him from doing exactly this in the past.
“Promise you’ll stay alive then. Promise me Steve. And I promise you this, I will come back for you. No matter how long it takes.”
Eyes closed as his own tears streamed freely now, Steve tucked his face against Bucky’s chest, heard the heart within it beating so strongly. And prayed that it continued to do just that. Just keep beating. “I promise,” he whispered.